Thursday, March 7, 2013

On February 19th, I started my latest career adventure. Making a job change wasn't in my plans but I was contacted last Fall by a former colleague about a software developer position at Cradlepoint, a Boise-based maker of wireless (cellular and wifi) routers. Since I wasn't too interested in switching jobs, it took until January before I was eventually convinced to talk to the team in sort of an informal interview. The interview went well and perhaps most importantly I was impressed by the team and it seemed like the sort of place where I would fit in well.

Eventually they made a strong offer and I had to make a decision which took me the full week to make. After lots of waffling and indecision I ended up choosing to make the change. I wasn't excited about leaving SEL so quickly but I felt like the opportunity better matched my own career goals. It was hard to put in my notice and give up all of the great things about SEL. Even as I finished up there, I was still uncertain if I had made the right decision.

I took my birthday off in between jobs and started the day after on Tuesday the 19th. So far I've been very happy with the change - the environment is pretty fast paced and I get to work with a variety of open source technologies. The development environment features a lot of Python and JavaScript, with a variety of other languages mixed in. The office pretty much runs exclusively on Linux and MacOS, which is a first in my career but a very positive one. The gig also involves some pretty cutting-edge cloud deployment infrastructure, which has been a lot of fun to learn. I think it's important to always be learning and growing and the past two weeks have been full of that. Plus it is my first time working downtown and it is really nice to have lots of interesting lunch spots within walking distance!

Like any career change, it takes awhile to assess whether it was a good move. But so far I've been very happy with the change!